


oneiric days

by getbreqed



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 14:50:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14571342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getbreqed/pseuds/getbreqed
Summary: Breq asks Seivarden to make her tea. There are declarations of feelings.





	oneiric days

**Author's Note:**

> the original title was "seivarden's dream journal" and that might tell you something

Seivarden's hand shakes in its glove as she serves Breq tea out of their old cracked enamel tea set. Her hand doesn’t shake because she is out of practice at serving tea, although she is. Breq does not call on Seivarden to serve her tea as a rule, does not even seem to prefer it when her schedule and Seivarden’s schedule match up, but.

But today she had summoned Seivarden to her rooms. For personal reasons. Not bad ones, Ship had said, but it refused to elaborate further. Seivarden wondered if the reassurance at the end had come from Ship or Breq as she followed her instructions. She had arrived at Breq's rooms, the Fleet Captain's quarters, and she had been admitted to find Fleet Captain sitting alone, without any other officers or Kalrs - and also without her gloves.

Seivarden had seen Breq without her gloves before, of course. Absolutely. For most of that first year they had both been totally and improprietously gloveless, and alone in close quarters together. Of course, then Breq was just Breq, and not Fleet Captain Breq Mianaai. Then her not wearing gloves was a matter of... of disguise, of practicality. She did not wear gloves then for reasons beyond her control, but now she had taken them off to request a private meeting with Seivarden, alone, for personal reasons.

Breq was pleased at Seivarden's entrance, Seivarden could tell even through her shock at Breq's wide knuckled fingers resting lightly on the table. She was pleased and she noted Seivarden's hesitation as the door closed behind her. She said, "Seivarden," (not lieutenant not - Vendaii, Breq wouldn’t, not here, just, 'Seivarden’) "I would like it very much if you would serve me tea. The enameled tea set is laid out for you. If you wish."

Seivarden's brain skipped right over the awkward phrasing to wonder if Breq had ever requested this of her before when Seivarden had been her servant and, no, in her admittedly imperfect and... unsteady recollections of those days, Breq had asked for nothing but a servant. Seivarden had assigned her own tasks but now... but now Breq ‘would like it very much.' If.

"Of course," she said, and it sounded passable, and then - hands, gloved shaking hands and the old enamel tea set and Fleet Captain Breq Mainaii's bare hands and the flask clinks and the cup nearly spills tea onto her lap and Seivarden spills some tea onto the table when she hastily sets it down.

"I'm - so sorry I can -"

"It's alright, Lieutenant, just-"

"Sorry - just let me -"

"Seivarden, sit down."

Seivarden finds herself kneeling on the ground with a thump and looking up at Fleet Captain, not sure how she got there. Fleet Captain looks surprised, but recovers quickly.

"I apologize for requesting that, if it was too much," Breq says. "I intended to put you at ease, and I thought that this was something that would do that for you."

"I don't - it usually does, but - we're alone and - your hands - "

"My hands?" says Fleet Captain. She lifts both hands in front of her and stretches her (short, bare) fingers. "You've seen them before."

"Yes, but never... you've never..."

"Taken off my gloves for you? No, I haven't. But I have today. This isn't me leading into a request for you to kneel for me, I just - " Here she pauses, and then says "I intended to do something for you that would make you happy."

Seivarden begins to move to get up, to say ‘Fleet Captain, you don't have to do anything for me,’ and then Breq puts a hand on her shoulder and she freezes in place at the bare fingers touching her uniform, inches from her exposed neck.

"I apologize," Breq says, watching Seivarden. "I misspoke. I meant I wanted to do something to make you happy." She pauses again and Seivarden stays frozen, muscles almost uncomfortably tensed, happy to never move again if Breq wishes it.

"May I put my hand on your head?" she asks.

"Yes," Seivarden answers, softer than she thinks she intends.

Breq takes her (bare) hand off of Seivarden's shoulder and she feels the loss like a yearning bone deep until Breq's hand settles on top of her hair and stays, solid and steadying, reigniting the molten gold that lived in Seivarden's chest and was slowly rolling to encompass her entire self.

"Relax," she orders, gently, and all the tension in Seivarden's body deserts her as she settles fully back onto her knees. 

Breq is still looking down at her, calm. Unflinching. Seivarden feels vulnerable, safe, keeps looking up at Breq as she begins to hum something, then sing, her bare thumb continuing to make gentle circles in Seivarden’s hair. Seivarden's eyes want to close, but she keeps her eyes on Breq's face. It is very important. Not Breq's face, Breq's face is always important because Breq is important, but looking at Breq's face right now is very important for no reason Seivarden can name. She doesn’t mind. Looking at the face of the most important person in the entire world is much more of a pleasure than a hardship.

There is a millennia of that at least, just sitting there - certainly much longer than Seivarden had ever been trapped in that escape pod - paying attention to only Breq's thumb moving in repetitive circles in her hair in time with the off key song she is singing. Keeping her eyes looking up at Breq. She can do that. It is easier and better than anything else she's ever done in her life.

Breq's song finishes, eventually, and the millennia comes to an end. Seivarden brings herself together enough to ask, "What was that?"

"It's a song, from about twenty five hundred years ago, one of the cultures that was in the Ibon system," she explained, low and soft. Wonderful. "It's a call and response song between a mother and a child about the sun and the sea being in love."

"Oh," said Seivarden, concerned with the words more than their meaning and glowing with Breq's gentle pleasure, "then it’s - a tragedy, then? Sky and sea, doomed never to meet?"

"The mother asks that, but the child points out the horizon, you see the place where these things touch? / they need no more to show their love / no more, no less, no more, no less.”

Breq doesn’t sing the translated words,but her voice takes on a lilt when she says them, speaking to the rhythm of a remembered tune that no longer quite fits modern language. In her mouth it is beautiful. She continues.

“Then the mother points to places where the sea-horizon is not visible, and the child rejoices that even when we see they are separate, they know that they are together somewhere. It's almost Radichii idea, the fact of separation necessarily implies that there is also the balance of joining."

She hums a bit of the same song again, off key and comforting, and Seivarden breathes. Breathes. Wants to say. Something. Says "Do you... do you like your tea?"

Breq blinks and looks up to the table where her neglected cup of tea is sitting. She lifts it with the hand that is not in Seivarden's hair and takes a sip before putting it down and turning her full attention back to Seivarden.

"It's good," she says, and Seivarden is ecstatic. "But the quality of the tea matters less to me than that you made it for me at my request."

She is quiet for a second, considering, before continuing: "I have been thinking recently about what I am. Physically I am an ancillary - but the existence of an ancillary implies the existence of a ship, which is false. And if I am a ship, that implies the existence of a physical ship, which is also false. Everything else I could be, I am not. But. I am living and acting as a human - I am, functionally, human - and I may have been remiss in that role. To you."

Seivarden frowns. Breq doesn’t have anything to be remiss about towards her, did she? Breq had never been required to be anything or anyone to Seivarden after she was Breq and not Ship and she had been there for Seivarden anyway, time and time again.

"I care for you - very much," Breq continued. "Your health and wellbeing as well as you as a person. I don't - You aren't perfect, and you make mistakes, but you are willing to learn from them and make yourself into a better person. I know you have the capacity to admit and learn from your mistakes, and I lo-" 

Here she pauses, and sighs. Seivarden is sure she will remember these words until the day she dies. Breq's bare hand is still making soothing circles in Seivarden's hair.

"I like you very much," Breq admits. "More than I can admit to myself in words right now, I think, but. You are valuable to me, you are valued by me. I have been thinking of you as a ship thinks of a favorite, and attempting to express my feelings in that way, and not with words as a human would. The thought that you might not understand that I - feel, towards you is... displeasing."

"I," Seivarden breathes, and then licks her lips. I love you seems almost gauche, improper here when Breq had very clearly said those words in the act of not saying them. "You are the most important person in the universe," tumbles out instead - which is not what she meant to say, but true nonetheless.

Breq smiles, her real true smile, and tension that Seivarden hadn't even realized she was holding leaves her frame. "I know at least one tyrant who would disagree with that," she says, and then gently pulls Seivarden's head to the side so that her cheek is pressed against one of Breq's broad thighs. She can feel the stiff fabric against her cheek and hear the sound of Breq humming something, not quite in key as always but low and soothing, and she can feel again the soft touch of Breq's thumb moving in her hair. There is no place in the universe she'd rather be.

\---

Later, in her own quarters, Lieutenant Seivarden touches her own hair, tries to fit her larger palm around exactly the area Breq had placed her hand, and curses the fact that hair grows and has to be washed. 

She walks on air that day, and can barely stop smiling enough to properly complete her duties.

**Author's Note:**

> i do wonder how class-bound seivarden personally feels about breq being a mainaai. comments/critique/any response welcome!


End file.
